


Mishaps Like Sinking Ships.

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Cutting, Gen, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-11 06:26:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/475514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce's greatest desire is to no longer exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mishaps Like Sinking Ships.

For a long time, Bruce tried to save himself from the Hulk. He tried every cure that had even a stretch of a chance of working. He worked with countless people; just Betty at first, then monks and yoga instructors and pot smokers and probably a few drug cartels but that was alright. Nothing could make him more infamous than the Hulk did, which was kind of an invincibility all its own. He reasoned he would still be responsible for the destruction in the government’s eyes even if he could stop the Other Guy from appearing. But at least he’d be living with only himself.

When he trembles with fear in his bed at night and suddenly remembers the odd angle of a little Brazilian boy’s neck, a bus wrapped around a telephone pole, blood caked in Betty Ross’s hair, living doesn’t seem to be the answer. No matter how many patients he saw a day in Calcutta or anywhere, he could never give those lives back. Hundreds of people, maybe thousands. Many more than he could ever compensate his own life for. He wishes it was as easy to destroy the Hulk as it was to create him.

Tonight, that’s what’s keeping him awake. Going through the mental list of ways to potentially kill himself. Poison is out of the question. Metabolizes too quickly in his gamma blood to do permanent damage. Asphyxiation was also out; the Hulk could live in a vacuum even if Bruce Banner could not. He already knew what a gunshot would do; nothing, except maybe a lot of property damage. He shouldn’t be making himself laugh about this but he just did, a kind of laugh that snaps in the air and makes him feel worse instead of better.

His legs swing out over the bed and his feet hit the floor with a thud. He feels heavy, heavy, like he could sink through the tile, into the center of the earth without stopping. If it were only that simple. But Tony got it right; he’s an excellent problem solver. His lips curl over his teeth in an excellent sneer as he opens the bathroom door.

He decides to sit in the bathtub. He’s so tired of leaving messes behind for other people to clean up, but he reasons this has to be the last one. With surgical steadiness he picks the razor blade from the handle. He sinks it into a vein slowly (quickness seems to be failure’s common denominator) and hisses. He tugs a millimeter and blood spurts on his leg and stains the white tile of the bathtub in a way that’s almost beautiful, a way that makes him smile when he looks at his blood flowing over his skin and he’s not changing, and for once in his life he doesn’t question why.

The door slamming against the wall makes him jump, and he’s surprised by how quickly his vision has already blurred. Tony has the halo of the bedroom light behind him, arms crossed as he leans against the doorway. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

His steady fingers fumble the blade and it drops to the tile with as much sound as a pin. He looks at Tony and laughs, and laughs and laughs and laughs in hard belly rolls that’s he’s never felt before in his life. All the reasons have gone down the drain, like the blood swirling before getting sucked into nothingness, non-existence. He wants this so much he’s hysterical, and when pressure closes on his wrist it’s not his own. He hadn’t even noticed Tony making it across the room. His chest aches, and his legs kick out.

Tony isn’t supposed to be saving him because Bruce is too busy saving everyone else from himself.

But here he is, holding his arm with the tightest death grip anyone has ever had on his arm. It’s like he’s making the blood stop flowing by sheer force of will. There’s a lot of things Tony has done by sheer force of will, he thinks, and then everything goes black.

-

When he wakes up he doesn’t know where he is. His mouth is dry, his bones ache. There’s a plate of food next to him on the bed, and the curtains have been drawn so he can watch the sun rise in a billion different angles off reflective skyscrapers. He lifts up his arm and the muscles ache. There’s a military grade bandage around his wrist, and he smiles. He never turned into the Hulk, or that wouldn’t need to be there. So he almost got it right.

“You really think that’s the solution?” Bruce’s head pounds when his neck turns to look at Tony. The same way he was. Arms still defensively crossed over his chest.

“No.” And he says it honestly, and his laugh turns into a hiccup. “But what else am I supposed to do?”

“Stop fighting it.” Tony’s thumb wipes over his nose, and Bruce narrows his eyes at him.

“How did you know I was there?”

“You ate all your dinner. You never eat all of your food.” Tony smiles and turns away for a second. “I know a last supper when I see one.”

Bruce doesn’t know what to say, so he lets his trembling head fall back onto the pillow. “So why did you stop me?”

Tony smirks, and his head falls back on the door frame. “A hell of a lot of paperwork.”

Bruce smiles weakly at that, and he picks the glass up next to his bed, taking tentative sips of water. Suddenly his face blanches. “You didn’t—you didn’t get my blood on you, did you? Fuck, your hand was on my arm and everything—”

Tony cuts him off with the squeaking shriek of a chair being pulled across tile, and he sits on it backwards with his legs splayed out. “I’m fine. Good at cleaning myself up. Are you done with your twenty questions now?”

Bruce nods slowly, and his eyelids start to droop. He wants to fight off this sleep but he doesn’t think he can. He sees an IV needle on the hand the bandage isn’t on; must be some kind of morphine. “Tony?”

“Mmm?”

“Thank you.” His chest feels heavy like he’s about to cry, so he closes his eyes and pretends to fall asleep. He feels Tony’s fingers close around his palm and smiles to himself.

“Possum.” Tony smiles against his good wrist. Bruce feels something settle in his bones, something make all his muscles relax.

He’s tired of fighting. For once, with Tony’s head on the bed next to his hip, he doesn’t feel like he has to.


End file.
